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(JED/IFEX) - The president of the Chad Union of Privately-Owned Radio Stations (URPT), Tchanguiz Vatankhah, was released on 19 May 2006 at approximately 3:00 p.m. (local time), after 20 days in detention at the police headquarters (Services Généraux des Renseignements) in N'Djamena, the capital of Chad. JED joined Tchanguiz by telephone after he left the prison. Tchanguiz said that he had been...

New York, May 19, 2006 - Authorities in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan today finally implemented a Supreme Court ruling to free editor Viktor Shmakov from pre-trial detention after a 48-hour delay, local media reported. Shmakov, the 63-year-old editor-in-chief of Provintsialniye Vesti (Provincial News), said he believed he was kept in jail for an extra two days to prevent him from attending...

New York, May 22, 2006 - The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release of four Colombian journalists who were detained on May 17 while covering indigenous protests against a free trade pact with the United States in Cauca province. Two days after the arrest, police released Richard Calpa, director of the radio station La Libertad in the city of Totoró, Marcelo Forero, a reporter with...

(RSF/IFEX) - On the eve of the 13th anniversary of Eritrea's independence, on 24 May 2006, Reporters Without Borders appealed to President Issaias Afeworki to release all of his government's prisoners of conscience, including 13 journalists being held incommunicado whose newspapers were shut down in a September 2001 crackdown. "Eritrea's independence day is once again going to be ruined by the...

(SEAPA/IFEX) - On 23 May 2006, an explosive device made of firecracker materials was detonated in front of the Thai Press Association on Rachasima Rd. in Bangkok, causing damages to the association's marble sign. Police said a security guard on duty at the site heard a loud explosion in front the compound at around 3 a.m. (local time). According to the police, the guard went out to check but did...

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- "Engagement" has begun to resemble a Holy Grail of magazine metrics -- neither fully understood nor precisely located, but the object of countless quests. A new study on engagement, one among many efforts to demystify the subject, delivers a blow to true believers. Performance findings The study suggests that ads in high-engagement magazines perform no better than ads in...

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has filed a libel suit against a prominent Palestinian editor who called him a mafia leader and accused him of financial corruption. The case against Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi, was filed with a PA magistrate's court in Ramallah by Abbas's sons, Tarek and Yasser. This is the first time that Abbas has filed a libel suit...

New Delhi, May 19: The government has appointed a committee to go into the demands for revival of abolished distinguished Journalist Category for Parliament passes. "In 1996, distinguished category of journalist was abolished. There is a strong demand to restore it. I have appointed a committee to go into this demand," Parliamentary Affairs Minister P R Dasmunsi told reporters. He said after the...

Wellington - Angry Chinese students at New Zealand's Massey University protested against a student newspaper's front cover spoof depicting Mao Zedong wearing a dress, according to news reports on Friday. Tempers flared outside the university's library in Palmerston North as about 50 Chinese students and a Chinese lecturer confronted staff of the student paper Chaff, the Manawatu Standard reported...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has renewed its concerns about the safety of journalists in the Philippines after a week of violent attacks on media workers. The situation for journalists in the Philippines has gone from bad to worse this week when a journalist was violently attacked on May 16, 2006, just hours after Albert Orsolino, a photojournalist with Saski Ngayon, was...